A Note On Timescales
Due to personal reasons, I had to take some time away from the project after completing this stage of the prop build. When I returned, I reassessed what could realistically be achieved within the time remaining.
I decided not to construct the complete Buggane cave or church sets, and I was ultimately unable to produce the planned motion tests or finished animatic. Instead, I focused the remaining time on completing the strongest possible proof-of-concept package.
To support the Official Notice of Complaint, I created a smaller section of the church wall and door. This allowed me to place the graphic prop within a physical environment without committing to the complete set originally proposed.
I have included a video of the entire process below. I started with some high density foam, carving out my door frame first, then going round and etching each individual brick.
Once I had my design, I went back and carved more out of the space surrounding the bricks to show the gaps, using reference images of the real St Trinian’s to see the spacing of the bricks. I then used a rolled up piece of till foil to press into foam to create a more ‘stone’ texture. After this point I primed the diorama with black paint to give myself a head start on the undertones of the brick colouring.
This process took a little longer than I’d hoped due to not having any PVA glue to first seal the model, you’ll see from the video and the finished model that I almost ruined my build by using a acetate based spray primer on the model which actually melts foam, thankfully I had enough of a base of regular paint that it didn’t fully ruin my work, however it did have the added benefit of giving me an interesting pattern on the door wood which I would paint to look more like wood grain.
After the base coat was dry, I went over with multiple different colours, contrast layers and drying brushing to really bring out the stone style to each brick.
I even added different coloured stones as per my reference image, the real St Trinian’s seems to have some red coloured bricks among the standard greys, additionally I added a small amount of green tones to show slight moss growth. Overall I think this effect worked brilliantly.
While working on the smaller details, I also sculpted a ring pull, backing plate and nails for the church door. I made two different-sized hammers as supporting character props: one for the monks and another for the much larger Buggane. These were originally intended for the motion tests, but remained supporting build elements after the animation stage was removed from the final scope.
I’ve included a short video of these parts below;
